ARKADELPHIA, Ark. – The Arkansas Tech baseball team picked up an impressive 9-0 shutout win over Henderson State in the series-opener on Friday night thanks to dominant pitching and timely hitting in the late innings.
Against the Reddies on Friday, the Wonder Boys used two pitchers with
John Gray getting the start and handling the first seven innings while
JT Cafferty came on in relief and took care of the final two innings. The two would combine for 13 strikeouts.
In the start, Gray scattered three hits, all singles, and struck out 10. Cafferty, in his two innings, did not allow a hit and struck out three.
With the pitching of Gray and Cafferty holding the Reddies' offense off the scoreboard, the Wonder Boys offense was methodical in its business and efficient late with eight of their nine runs scoring from the fifth inning on.
The first tally of the game for Tech came in the top of the second when
Aaron Hogue hit a sacrifice fly to right field with the bases loaded, scoring
Nick Jones, who led the inning off with a single through the right side.
That 1-0 lead for Tech held until the top of the fifth when the Wonder Boys pushed across another run, this time on a RBI single to left field off the bat of
Logan Schwenke.
An inning later, the Wonder Boys broke the game open with four runs on one hit. The hit scored a pair of runs as Schwenke came through with a single to right-centerfield scoring
Keaton Ranallo and
Christian Olea. Earlier in the inning,
Brendyn Bard scored on a wild pitch, while
Grant Jones scored on a bases loaded walk drawn by his brother, Nick.
The Wonder Boys would go on to add single runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, respectively to bring the score to its final of 9-0.
The three-game series between Arkansas Tech and Henderson State is scheduled to be completed on Saturday afternoon with a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m.
